Undo It
by jhm64892
Summary: Imogen Scarlett Holmes has been left mourning for her father after the Reichenbach Fall. So what happens when he arrives back at 221B one night? How will she deal when she is dealt disaster after disaster?
1. Begin Again

_**A/N – Okay so I'm experiencing Sherlock withdrawals and this idea has been floating around in my mind. Also, things may seem slightly OOC and dates and details may not quite add up but bear with me.**_

_And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid  
I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did  
I've been spending the last eight months  
Thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end  
But on a Wednesday in a cafe I watched it begin again_

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Born on 17th February 1995, Imogen Scarlett Holmes was alert and bright-eyed from the beginning. When first handed to her father, the drug addled detective Sherlock Holmes, she clung to his comparably large finger with her tiny pink fist as though it were a life force. It was then and there that Sherlock decided that he would protect his little girl in any way he knew possible and, he knew, that meant kicking his heroin habit.

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Months later, the detective returned to the home he shared with Jane Richardson, Imogen's mother, clean and sober, only to find she'd taken up with some brute of a man. He'd been gone too long and without warning, she claimed. Could he at least see their child? He asked her, a rare pleading look in his eyes. No, she announced with finality in her weed and alcohol induced state. He could have cried, he could have threatened her with his brother but he didn't. Instead, he left and resorted to writing letters to his little girl in the hopes that once she was able to read them, she'd understand why he left.

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Three years later, Imogen sat in a taxi, one of her father's letters in hand, the one with his address written on it. The words 221B Baker Street held such hope to her.

She'd gotten sick of it all. Jane would leave her, sometimes for days at a time, with Stuart – a man who insisted he was her stepfather – not caring that the three-year-old was being beaten and abused in any way possible by the swine. So one day, while her mother nursed a hangover and Stuart was out cold, she packed her tiny pink suitcase with her books and pyjamas and ran away, away to the place where her father lived.

Upon arrival, she paid the nice man who drove the taxi the money she'd accrued from her mother's purse and clambered out, pink suitcase and stuffed bunny trailing behind her. It took quite an effort to carry both the suitcase and the bunny up the stairs to the front door but she did it. She knocked three times and hoped for an answer.

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When Mrs Martha Hudson answered the door, she was surprised to see a little girl stood on the doorstep clutching tightly onto a stuffed bunny and a pink wheelie suitcase. She had black hair that hung in ringlets and eyes that couldn't seem to make up their mind as to a colour. Her cheekbones were high and her nose pointed downwards towards her butterfly lips. However, the girl's resemblance to the tenant of 221B wasn't what shocked Mrs Hudson, it was the bruises that dotted the girl's small, pale frame. Who could do such a thing to a child so young? "Hello, are you lost?" the middle aged woman asked, a kindly smile on her face.

Here, the girl shocked Mrs Hudson yet again "No, I'm not lost per se. I'm looking for my father, Sherlock Holmes, he's a detective. And you must be Mrs Hudson, his landlady not his housekeeper," the small girl surmised and Mrs Hudson's jaw dropped. The girl couldn't be older than three and yet she spoke like she were eighteen.

"You'd best come in then," the landlady said, shaking her head at how similar the young girl was to Sherlock.

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He saw her for the first time since the day she was born, battered and bruised and standing in his living room. He was shocked, she looked so much like him and yet she couldn't be the tiny girl he'd left. Jane wouldn't have hurt their little girl, would she? He was about to ask about her marks when she said "You look like me," her tone was so innocent and yet the look in her eyes said otherwise, it said she'd experienced pain.

Still, he smirked, he couldn't help – it was a reflex. "Well, because I'm older, you'll find that _you _look like _me_," he corrected and watched as she rolled her eyes.

"Yes but it's from _my _perspective so to me you look like me and to you I look like you," she explained, nervously tucking a stray curl behind her ears. Had she said the right thing? He smiled, yes she had.

"Goodness, you're both very alike aren't you?" Mrs Hudson interjected and the two Holmes rolled their eyes. Captain Obvious had struck again.

"Of course we are Mrs Hudson, she's my daughter after all," Sherlock said proudly.

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From that day onwards, Imogen and her father were as thick as thieves. She'd help him with experiments and he'd tell her bedtime stories; he'd let her sleep in his bed after a nightmare and she'd pick out everyone's Christmas and birthday presents. She knew that she could tell him _anything _and he knew the same of her.

When Imogen was fourteen, John came along and the little unit expanded by one. Not that Imogen minded really. It meant that she could hang out with her – very few – friends and _not _feel guilty about leaving her father alone.

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She'd been at school in the middle of lunch when John rang to tell her about the fall. After Kitty Riley's article very few had stayed friends and she was with the few who'd remained by her side that afternoon. She answered the phone, knowing that John _only _phoned during school hours if there was an emergency. He sounded distraught and she'd _never _heard John sound like that. "You may need to sit down," he'd said and fear started to engulf her.

"What is it? D-did Moriarty do something? Is Mrs Hudson okay? W-where's dad?" she asked, question after question flowing from her mouth in a nervous stream of consciousness. An arm snaked around her shoulder in an attempt at comfort, she wouldn't learn until later that it was her best friend, Alec's, arm.

She heard John take a deep breath and knew the news must be far worse than she could have imagined "Y-your dad jumped off the roof of St. Barts," he said and her breath hitched in shock.

"I-is he a-alive?" she stuttered out hoping for the best all the while fearing the worst. Tears streamed down her face as she awaited his response.

"No," he told her and she started to struggle for air as realisation hit her right in the gut. Sherlock would never see her graduate from university, he'd never get to walk her down the aisle, he'd never hold his grandchildren. He would miss all of the milestones left in her life and that hurt more than any injury her former stepfather had given her.

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The funeral was the worst part. She'd had to turn down all of her university offers, even with the scholarships Oxford and Cambridge had offered her, there was no way she could afford it all.

It almost felt like someone was playing a practical joke on her. Only John, Mrs Hudson, Lestrade Imogen and, strangely, Anderson were upset at all.

She hated the dress she'd chosen for the event, she'd been too numb to pick something halfway comfortable and had picked the first black dress in her wardrobe. The satin scratched at her skin and the high neck felt more like a dog collar than a part of a dress.

Her Uncle Mycroft smoked cigarettes throughout the whole service and lord knew where her Uncle Sherrinford was. She hadn't seen him in years though so there weren't any surprises there.

Shockingly, Imogen was leaning on Irene Adler and starting to _appreciate _the dominatrix's company. Her father would laugh at that were he alive and she knew it. Still, Irene acted as a pillar of strength and the teenage girl needed that more than anything.

Strangely, Molly was calm. The mousy pathologist hadn't shed a single tear for the detective she'd supposedly been in love with. Were it not for the fact that Imogen was so distraught, she would have found it suspicious.

Odder still, Imogen realised, her grandparents – Violet and Siger Holmes – weren't upset at all by their son's death. _That _raised a few red flags, maybe Sherlock Holmes wasn't dead after all. No, that was a ridiculous notion. Imogen had seen and identified the body, knew the height from which he'd jumped, he _couldn't _be alive.


	2. Ribs

_This dream isn't feeling sweet  
We're reeling through the midnight streets  
And I've never felt more alone  
It feels so scary getting old_

_Ribs – Lorde_

She could hear the creaking of floorboards as someone tiptoed up the staircase, she knew for definite they weren't Mrs Hudson's footsteps, that much was obvious. She tried to listen rather than just hear as her late father had taught her. They weren't by any means light meaning that, whoever it was, was tall, taller than John's 5 foot 6" anyway. That didn't leave many people. Judging by the type of creak the floorboards made, the person was between 6 foot 2" and 6 foot 4". There was no escaping it now, she'd have to get out of bed and deal with the issue at hand.

Digging through the drawer in her bedside table, she found what she was looking for – a .48 calibre pistol John had given her 'just in case' she'd never truly known what that case might be but figured this was as close to it as she'd get.

Exiting her bedroom, she looked left and right down the hallway for the person – no one was there, maybe she'd hallucinated the sound. Still, she decided to check the rest of 221B for the potential intruder. She made her way into the living room only to be greeted with the silhouette of a man she thought she'd never see again. Flicking on the light, to make sure that she was right if nothing else. There he sat, in his chair, Belstaff dumped on _her _couch – she had purchased it with what little savings she had just over a year before – looking the picture of nonchalance. Her hands trembled with shock as she tried to maintain her aim at him. How could he back? He'd been _dead _for going on two years. And if he was back did that mean – no she couldn't let herself think like that, those things Moriarty had done to her those short years ago were too painful to recall.

He was dead, and yet, here he sat in the flesh, her father – the great William Sherlock Scott Holmes. His left eye was swelling up – she was pretty sure as to who'd caused that injury too – and he was thinner but it was him, the same man who'd tucked her into bed at night, who'd held her as she cried, was here in front of her in that very moment. And what should he say? Nothing except "You're not _really _going to shoot me with that are you Imogen?"

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Sherlock watched as Imogen danced about the kitchen in search of the first aid kit. _His _little girl, the baby he'd once rocked asleep, the toddler who'd found her way to his doorstep with a stuffed bunny and a suitcase filled only with a selection of books and a pair of pyjamas, had _grown up_. How had _that _happened? Of course he knew _how _it had happened but still, she was eighteen now! She'd put bright pink streaks in her now shoulder length black hair and wore black lacy pyjamas. She'd lost weight, a lot of it too, her shoulder blades completely visible on her back. She had bags under her eyes from going too long without sleep. He _suspected _that John had, at some point, prescribed her with sleeping pills but she refused to take the. He couldn't blame her, he'd refuse too. He could see the dregs of brandy in a liqueur glass on the kitchen bench and thought that _maybe _she'd resorted to alcohol to get to sleep now.

Mycroft _had _warned him of something like this in his debrief but Sherlock had presumed that his older brother was being dramatic as always. Mycroft, like Sherlock's arch nemesis, always _did _have a flair for that sort of thing. It was all so much worse than he ever could have imagined. She was broken, her innocence gone, had he _really _done that to her? He hadn't wanted to, he'd known that what Moriarty did to her on _that _day maybe if he explained "You know, I'll never forget the first time I ever got to hold you. You were so small, your head fit perfectly in the crook of my elbow. You grabbed a hold of my finger and looked up at me with these big, blue eyes and I swore that I'd do _everything _in my power to protect you. I wasn't able to when you were little and that _arsehole _abused you, but when Moriarty _threatened _you, I did. That's why I jumped, that's why I faked my death," He was somewhat hopeful in his explanation, hopeful that she'd forgive him but alas this was never going to go his way was it?

She slammed a cupboard door and he winced at its sound. She only ever slammed things when she was really, very angry. She turned to face him, tears in her eyes "That's just great! Bloody brilliant in fact! You faked your death but that's okay because you were protecting me?" she yelled, her voice dripping with sarcasm and bitterness "No, you don't get off that easily. John and I thought you were _dead _for two _years_. Two fucking years! I had to identify your body, I had to go through your funeral and now you come back wanting my _forgiveness_? You're worse than _she _ever was!" She roared and it hit him _right _where it hurt the most. She'd never compared him to her mother before. Imogen really had been destroyed by this hadn't she? "I had to go through _therapy _for God's sake! _John _keeps prescribing me sleeping pills because I haven't slept in two years for fear of nightmares. Even _Uncle Mycroft, _the man who doesn't care about anyone, is concerned. He has agents _watch _me every single _fucking _day. Molly is insistent on my going to the Morgue once a week because she thinks I 'need someone who gets the whole dead dad thing'. _Lestrade, _a man whose first name you can't seem to remember, keeps bringing me cases so I don't end up bored out of my mind. _Mrs Hudson _keeps checking to see if I'm still breathing because I-" She stopped herself and he filled in the gaps with the worst, something he hoped he was wrong about "And do you know what the worst part is? After all this time, _Anderson _was right!"

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She _went _to bed, she just didn't _sleep _in it. Cried? Ye. Slept, however, absolutely not. At around six in the morning, she received a text from Alec, her now not-boyfriend-boyfriend as she and Mary had dubbed him. Irene had given him a far cruder name.

_Morning beautiful_

_Alec._

Is all it read, still she smiled, briefly forgetting about the _horrid _night she'd had. Funny how one person could completely brighten your day and another could completely ruin it. She thought of the last time she'd seen Alec, a mere 12 hours before. She'd promised John and Mary that she'd close up the practise so they could be on time for their date at The Landmark. Alec, the sweetheart he was, had shown up with wine, Thai food and cakes.

Oh God, how was she going to tell him? He'd stood by her side and held her as she cried at her father's funeral. He had been one of her two rocks during it all, and now what would he think?

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She padded through the living room, into the kitchen and turned on the coffee pot at 7am as was her routine. She took out a mug, _her _mug, the one her father had given her in a moment of sentiment. On it were the words 'World's Best Daughter'. They were ten to a dozen but at the time it represented love. Now, it meant only lies and deceit to her. Angry with everything, she threw it against the kitchen wall. It smashed into more pieces than she could care to count and hot, saline tears started to form in her eyes as she bent down to pick up the pieces. She hated this, this angry, tearful version of herself.

Her phone rang with the sound of We Found Love by Rihanna, indicating that it must be Alec. She smiled a watery smile and picked up "H-hey," she said, her voice shaking with the threatening tears.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked, his voice filled with concern. She hated making him worry like this.

"Y-yeah, happy tears I swear," she lied, feeling herself break apart. She hated lying to him but this was the kind of news you _didn't _deliver over the phone.

"Okay, you'd tell me if something _was _wrong, right?"

"Of course. I've got to go," she informed him. It wasn't quite true, the weekly brunch she and Mrs Hudson held for their friends didn't start for another couple of hours. All the same, she knew that if she stayed on the phone with Alec, she was more likely to break down and tell him _everything _and she _really _didn't want to do that over the phone.

"Of course, it's brunch day isn't it? You sure you don't want me to come round and deal with your uncle?" he asked and she chuckled. It had become a running joke between the two after one _particularly _difficult brunch where Lestrade had nearly had to call in Scotland Yard because Mycroft and John had gotten into a fist fight.

"No, you're alright," she said, smiling briefly before asking "Did you want to go out for lunch tomorrow?" She could practically see his shrug before she even received an answer.

"Sure, why not?" he replied and she smirked. She hung up and went back to brushing up the remnants of the mug. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the scars on her wrist, the remnants of the darkest period of her life.

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_2 Weeks after the Fall_

She blinked a few times. She was surrounded by white; white walls, white floor, white ceiling. Fluorescent lighting above her, she allowed her eyes to adjust. She heard a monotonous beeping, one that was in sync with her heartbeat and she knew _exactly _where she was. A hospital, most likely St. Barts. Her mouth was dry, how long had it been since she'd had a drink of water? She guessed at least a day and in the meantime she'd been ploughed full of intravenous fluids.

She lifted her left arm and felt pain shoot up her arm, in that instant it all came flooding back to her: the knife, the cutting, all of it. Had she _really _wanted to end it all? No, she thought, she just wanted some form of relief away from the pain and the heartache and the hurt. She closed her eyes as hot, salty tears fell from them. She didn't _want _anyone to see her like this. Not because she was worried about what they'd think but because they, like her, were grieving and she was ashamed that they hadn't attempted something like this, yet _she had_.

Eventually, she opened her eyes and looked around. She'd attracted quite a crowd. John, a very tearful Mrs Hudson, Molly, Mycroft and her grandparents were all there. To be honest, she'd never seen her uncle look _quite _so worried before. Of course, it _would _be Mycroft to be the _first _to bring up what she'd done "Are you really so _idiotic _as to attempt something like this? Do you have _any _idea what your father would say if he were here?"

"Mycroft!" she heard her grandmother say, her pitch high with what little anger she could muster. Violet Holmes had once been a well-respected mathematician until she gave it up to raise her two sons. Not that either of them had bothered to appreciate it. Imogen, of course, adored her. Not because of the gifts she gave or _even _because she loved her unconditionally but because she _understood _her. Violet Holmes understood what it was like to be an intelligent person who still bothered to care for people. She understood the way Imogen worked in a way neither Sherlock nor Mycroft could. Imogen was thankful that her grandmother had told off her uncle for his complete insensitivity. Still, she wished her grandmother had let her fight for herself.

"You know Uncle, you really are an unfeeling git! Your brother died two weeks ago and you chain-smoked throughout his entire funeral. _I _do what I did and you call me and idiot. You ask me what Dad would say if he were here and I do know. He'd wait until everyone else had left and then he'd ask me why, why I did it. But he isn't here, he's dead and buried and that's why I did it," she answered him and watched as shock played across his features.


	3. Four Walls

_Those four walls now are the only place that I can breathe out  
And those four walls now are home  
Those four walls now are the only place that I can feel  
Those four walls now are home_

_Four Walls - Broods_

The room was strangely silent, nine people crammed into one tiny living room and no one was uttering a word. John was glaring at Sherlock; Mycroft and Lestrade were sending each other flirtatious glances (or the closest thing to a flirtatious glance that Mycroft could possibly give); Mary and Irene were trying desperately not to laugh; Molly and Mrs Hudson were sat uncomfortably in the corner and Imogen had retreated to the kitchen.

She'd done it for a multitude of reasons but the main one was this: She _couldn't _look her father in the eye. Not without feeling a deep-seated need to beat the living daylights out of him. Although she was pretty sure no one would blame her if she did – in fact she was pretty sure Mary would cheer her on – she didn't want to make a scene.

She continued to fry off the bacon, ensuring each piece was cooked to what she deemed perfect. That was until she heard her father's footsteps as he walked into the kitchen. She groaned inwardly and focussed on the meat in the frying pan. She almost laughed as he grumbled about how everything had moved. Finally, he got sick of hunting around and asked "Where on _earth _have you put the cups?"

She turned to face him, saw his frustration and decided a bitter, snide remark was the only way forth "Couldn't you _deduce _that off of my drinking habits?" Her eyebrows raised and he stared blankly at her "They're in the cupboard by the kettle," she grumbled.

"Why would you put them _there_?" he asked as though it were the dumbest thing in the world.

"Because you weren't here and I didn't have to deal with your stupid, _illogical _system to accommodate your _damn _experiments," she said far louder than she'd meant to.

"How long is it going to take for you to forgive me?"

"How long is it going to take for _you _to apologise?" she retorted, anger rising within her like some kind of volcano once again.

He was shocked, only momentarily, but he was shocked all the same. She knew everyone was waiting with baited breath for his response. A part of Imogen wanted to deal him one final, definitive blow but before she could, he replied "I did," It was a simple but completely false statement.

"_No_. You didn't. You explained _why _you did it but you _never _apologised. It's _two _words Dad, 'I'm sorry' that's it, three syllables, seven letters, and an apostrophe. Not that hard but of course you're too much of a _robot _to understand," she roared at him. Then, she picked up her keys and purse and made her way out the door.

"Where are you going?" he called after her.

"_Out_!" she yelled with such finality to her voice that even _he _daren't argue with her.

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She'd ran and ran until, finally, she got to the one place she wanted to be: Alec's flat. Out of breath, and without her key to the place, she rang the doorbell repeatedly, _hoping _it would alert him to the urgency of the situation. Tears streamed down her already mascara-stained cheeks as she sat on the doorstep, waiting for him.

It wasn't long before she saw him on the pavement, hand in hand with a buxom blonde. For a moment, she thought the exchange was completely innocent, then she felt her world come crashing down on her as he pulled the other woman in for a long, lingering kiss. Imogen stood up, her jaw dropped completely aghast. She wanted to leave, she didn't want it known that she'd been there, not so she could fool herself into thinking she could make it work. She would _never _allow herself that liberty. No, she wanted to _torture _him but instead she heard him call her name "I should… I should go," she told him as she walked down the pavement he'd just been stood on, it was all she _could _say. They'd never been official, logically that meant she had no real right to be angry at him or act that way towards him anyway. So, she'd just opt for casual and fine instead.

"Imogen wait!" she heard him yell after her and she smirked momentarily.

Turning back she allowed anger to fill her for a second "For what? For you to tell me that _that _wasn't what it looked like? Alec, let's not pretend I didn't see what I just saw and let's not pretend that this was anything major. It's for the best," she told him, leaving and hailing a cab. Alec didn't need to know about what he'd put her through, he didn't need to know what only she, her grandparent, Mycroft, Mary, John and Irene knew. That was their secret. The fact that Mrs Hudson didn't know made it a secret that was easier to keep.

"Where to ma'am?" the cabbie asked in a strangely familiar Irish brogue. She shook her head free of any thoughts of Moriarty and what he'd done to her and fed the man the first address that popped into her head.

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Getting out of the cab, she paid the driver his – very expensive – fare and made her way up the steps to the flat she knew as her home away from home. She unlocked the door with the key John and Mary had given her when they first started renting the place. They'd said that it was in case they needed someone to look after the plants were they to go away but Imogen knew better. John and Mary didn't have plants, they weren't plant people. Imogen could read subtext just as well as any person. She knew what they really meant.

Once inside, she was greeted with a hug from Mary that made her tears flow even more. She couldn't get the words out of her mouth, couldn't admit to a woman she'd come to know as her best friend that she'd been wrong about Alec because that meant admitting it to herself. What had happened? Why did he do it? Was she not pretty enough? Was she too smart for him? Had she done something wrong? _What _was the point in questioning it all? Alec had cheated and, in retaliation, Imogen had dumped him, there was nothing more to it than that. And why should there be? Except… no she couldn't think of that, not right now anyway. Oh God, she was starting to sound like her father – at least in her thoughts anyway.

Finally, she got up the courage to admit it "Alec cheated on me, so I dumped him,"

"I'll kill him," Mary stated, teeth gritted, this woman was like a tigress ready for a fight. Imogen giggled all the same "No, I'll find a gun and I'll shoot him and we can dump his body in the Thames,"

Imogen giggled again "Won't they figure out it was you from the ballistics report?"

Mary sighed adolescently "Fine, guess we'll have to beat him then," the blonde responded and Imogen couldn't help her laughter.

"Not sure what John would say if we were arrested for murder. Plus, I'm sure my Uncle Mycroft has some _charming _Secret Service agents already at Alec's doorstep ready to beat him to a pulp,"

"Did Alec know about…" Mary trailed off, it was a sensitive subject.

"No, I couldn't bear to tell him. Don't think I ever will be able to bear telling him now," she said sombrely.

"Anyway, that uncle of yours, how long has the flirting with Lestrade been going on?" Mary asked brightening up the conversation and Imogen smiled thankfully.

Imogen rolled her eyes "_Too _long. I keep _trying _to tell him it's okay to love someone but he just says 'Caring is a disadvantage Imogen'" she informed the older woman whilst imitating her uncle's intonations almost perfectly.

She heard Mary's phone ring with her personalised ringtone for John – Crazy in Love by Beyonce – Mary's need to give everyone a personalised ringtone had become a running joke between her and Imogen, namely because Imogen did the same thing. Now, the younger woman had memorised all of them, she nodded her head, knowing John's tendency to panic when a phone wasn't answered. Mary headed off to the kitchen, in the hopes of gaining some form of privacy. Imogen could hear things like "Yeah, she's here," and "No, I don't think she wants to see him," each accompanied with their own sigh. Mary's voice hushed for a few moments in which Imogen had every idea as to what was being said.


	4. Get Back

_Don't look at me that way, I see it in your eyes.  
Don't worry about me, I've been fine  
I'm not gonna lie, I've been a mess  
Since you've left_

_Get Back – Demi Lovato_

Imogen got back from John and Mary's the next morning, her eyes red from crying, bags under them from lack of sleep. Dropping her keys on the small table in the hall, alerting her father to her presence – that was if her father was even _there_. She walked through the lounge to see her father, holding out a cup of coffee for her – a Flat White from the looks of it. Her reaction was typically suspicious "What did you _do_? Aside from the whole faking your death thing I mean," she asked reproachfully as she took it from his hands.

"Nothing, why would I have done anything just because I made you a cup of coffee?" he asked, sounding almost outraged by the suggestion.

"You are a high-functioning sociopath with narcissistic tendencies. You don't make people coffee or tea unless you've either done something wrong or you want something, so which is it?" she asked, a look of total apprehension on her face. That didn't stop her from taking a sip of the coffee. She needed the stuff, lack of sleep meant that coffee was a staple not an option in her diet.

"Your grandparents are coming down tomorrow and they want to see a matinee of that musical… Wizard? Was that it?" he stopped, and she could see him finding his way through his mind palace in order to find the answer "Never mind, it's not important. Anyway, you know I hate those things they're too unrealistic and your uncle certainly isn't going to go,"

"First of all, it's called Wicked. Second, they're_ your_ parents you have to deal with them at some point. Thirdly, I _will _do it but _only _because I have nothing to do," she answered as she left the room.

"Mary told me what Alec did," he called after her and she turned back around to see his face, worried, frightened even.

"W-what?"

"Alec was the one you were always hanging around with in secondary school right? Dark hair, brown eyes, scar just above his left ear? He cheated on you with a blonde, I-I know you probably hate me but if-if you wanted a hug or just to talk I _am _here," he said, he was nervous and she couldn't quite understand why. She appreciated it all the same and she really did want the hug. It was a one-time thing, he wasn't forgiven just yet. She stepped towards him, gingerly, almost as though the floor might break beneath her. She wrapped her arms around him and sobbed into his chest, letting all emotion she had out.

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This was oddly nice, this hug. Despite the circumstances of it all, he liked the fact that she was letting him hug her. He stroked her hair as she sobbed into his chest. Normally he hated any sign of emotion on other people, it was annoying but his little girl was upset because a boy had broken her heart and yet, he still felt a degree of guilt. Maybe he should have told her that he was going to fake his death, maybe he should have told John as well but then again, had he have told them would they have been able to make it all believable?

He stroked her hair gently, she seemed so breakable now. Maybe it was the fact that she was thinner than when he'd left. Maybe it was the fact that he knew she didn't sleep but he seemed so fragile now. Of course, he'd never let her know that he saw her that way. He knew that if she knew she'd think he thought less of her and the truth was the complete opposite. In fact, he admired the fact that she could let people see her in such a fragile state – he rather envied it. He'd never been able to show emotion – maybe if he could Molly would see herself as more than a friend in his eyes. She was the woman who counted to him, in more ways than one.

As a child, he'd never had many friends, even throughout university he only had people who wanted to take advantage of his abilities and intellect. He'd thought that Jane might have been different, it turned out that she was just like the others – another user. But she had given him one good thing, Imogen, his darling daughter who mattered more to him than anything in the world. She had everything he'd wanted as a child – friends, the love of everyone else around her, the ability to fit in. That had been her own good fortune, neither he nor Jane had been any good at fitting in, that was why they were drawn to each other, but Imogen she could be in the middle of a crowd and remain inconspicuous, she could understand social cues and sarcasm to their fullest extent. That was pure good fortune and for it, he was thankful.

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At some point, she'd managed to get sleepy enough that he had to carry her into her bedroom, it had been a while since he'd had to do that – she must have been about twelve the last time, she wasn't much heavier than she was then either. He carried her through to her bedroom, not bothering to look around as he whipped off the covers and gently placed her on the bed. He tucked her in, then proceeded to kiss her cheek.

It was only after this action, that he noticed what were on the walls of her room. It worked like a murder board – similar to the ones at Scotland Yard anyway. Right in the centre was a picture of him with webs of red string pinned out to other pictures like a spider's web. Molly, Mycroft and his parents were on the board with ticks on post-it notes next to them, as were pictures of Sherrinford and Irene. Ones with John, Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Anderson and Donovan in them had crosses next to them. And then there was the big one – Moriarty – with the words "Is he really dead?" written across the bottom. Imogen had figured it all out, she knew who had been involved, who had helped him and who hadn't, who had known and who hadn't. How long had she had this all figured out? A while, clearly – probably since the funeral at best deduction. He decided he'd leave it alone, she was mad at him as it was, if he gave her some space she'd probably come around.

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_There she hung, attached only to the wall by the cuffs around her wrists and ankles. There _he _was, right in front of her face like the smug bastard he was. "Who are you to Sherlock Holmes?" he asked before spitting in her face._

_She blinked the spit out of her eyes before answering "Honestly _Jim _if you're so smart, as the world's _only _consulting criminal, you should have figured it out by now,"_

"_Stalling won't help you any,"_

"_How sure of that are you?" she asked and then he dug his knife into her side and twisted it, she squeezed her eyes shut and clamped her lips tightly together as she tried not to scream. He removed it and she was pretty sure that blood had already started to ooze out of the wound. She wouldn't have long, four hours maximum and in that time her father had better show up"What did you think was going to happen? Did you think I was going to scream? You know me better than that, we've been at this for hours Jim, don't you think you'd have figured that the whole torture thing doesn't work on me?" _

"_DON'T TOY WITH ME!" he yelled and for a moment, only a moment, she was frightened of him but as quickly as he recovered from his anger, she recovered from her momentary fear "Now, who are you to Sherlock Holmes,"_

"_Well that depends on who you ask Jim. Some might say I'm a companion, others would consider me family," Then she got right in his face, right by his ear – using those techniques of persuasion she'd learnt from Irene Adler "And others would claim that Sherlock and I are something more. I bet that _really _makes your blood boil," she whispered before sucking on his ear. Moving away, she bit her lip and watched the disturbed look on his face._

_Then he was slashing at her and she was screaming with fear and pain. Every part of her hurt._

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She woke up screaming, the memory had been so real. Probably because at one point it had been real, it had really happened. She'd spent over two years trying to forget them. Nothing worked, it was impossible to delete such things from one's mind palace. They were too painful, too torturous to ever be forgotten. The things Moriarty and his men had done to her in that torture chamber were too horrible to remember and because she had gotten her father's damned memory and not her mother's, she could remember every single bit of it in graphic detail. Every slash, every stab, every slap, she remembered it all and everything in between. Now, she thought of her memory as a curse more than a gift. Maybe that was the reason why she'd really dropped the idea of university because if she went to Oxford or Cambridge and did her degree in politics or whatever it was she'd eventually have decided on then she'd have to use her brain every day. Sure, maybe the extra knowledge would eventually numb the memory of it all but it would all still be there, scaring her at night. The situation would be different but the feelings would all be the same.

She could see her father stood gingerly in the hallway, she wasn't sure how long he'd been there. Maybe since he'd carried her there, maybe since he'd heard her screaming. She didn't know. What she did know was that the hug he had given her earlier had helped her with her feelings towards Alec. Somehow, she didn't want to kill the bastard anymore so that was good. "You okay?" he asked her and she shook her head. Somehow, he knew exactly what she needed. He clambered into the bed beside her and held her close to him as she sobbed. Just as they had done when she was little. It made it feel as though, even for a little while, everything was going to be okay.


	5. Burn

_"Don't look don't look" the shadows breathe  
Whispering me away from you  
"Don't wake at night to watch her sleep  
You know that you will always lose  
This trembling  
Adored  
Tousled bird mad girl..."  
But every night I burn  
But every night I call your name  
Every night I burn  
Every night I fall again_

_Burn – The Cure_

He was back there, on the rooftop of St. Bart's. Staying Alive by The Bee Gees played incessantly on the tinny speakers of Moriarty's phone. The song's beat echoed the steady 'harumph, harumph' of their heartbeats as he steadily paced across the flat concrete. Moriarty sat on the edge of the roof looking at the people on the pavement below like a tyrannical king watching over his people "Well, here we are at last. You and me Sherlock and our problem, the final problem. _Staying Alive_," the consulting criminal said in his droll Irish brogue as he turned off the annoyingly repetitive soundtrack. He seemed strangely pale, paler than he had done the previous night as Richard Brooke anyway "It's so boring isn't it?" he asked rhetorically "It's just _staying_," he rested his head in between his knees "All my life I've been looking for distractions and you were the best distraction and now I don't even have you because I've beaten you, and you know what? In the end it was easy, it was easy and now I've got to go back to playing with the _ordinary _people and it turns out _you're _ordinary just like all them. Oh well!" the Irishman stood up then, getting near to Sherlock's face "Did you almost start to wonder if I was real? Did I nearly get you?"

Sherlock stared straight ahead out at the grey London streets as Moriarty paced around him, he _refused _to allow Moriarty to see any form of fear or worry radiating from his body "Richard Brooke," he growled.

"Nobody seems to get it but you do," he answered, his tone teasing almost cruel.

"Of course,"

"Atta boy,"

Then the voice of his daughter broke into his mind, calling out to him as his body shook all over. Memory and reality blurred together as her concerned face came into his line of sight.

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He was thrashing about in his sleep yelling out her name. Should she wake him? Should she leave him to wake himself? She should wake him, she decided and tried to shake him awake being kicked by his annoyingly long legs in the process. "Dad, Dad," she repeated until, finally, he opened his eyes, they quickly focussed on her face "Are you okay?" she asked, not caring that her voice betrayed her concern.

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" he asked nonchalantly.

Imogen knew better than to believe him, she had practically foreseen it. Sociopaths were particularly notorious for their tendencies to be pathological liars "Dad, you just made it clear that you have symptoms correlating with those of PTSD. _Don't _insult my intelligence by telling me that you're okay or that nothing's wrong," she told him almost angrily. She hadn't meant for it to sound that way, it just had.

He stared blankly at her for a moment "H-how did you figure that out?" he asked eventually. The fall still gave him nightmares, it was why he generally attempted to avoid sleep – more so than he normally would – but how would his daughter know that?

Her face softened slightly "You deflected the question. John used to do it when I asked him about Afghanistan and I-I do it when people ask about Moriarty," she answered sparingly "I was diagnosed a couple of weeks after the fall, John figured it out pretty quickly, forced me to go to therapy. It doesn't really help, that's why I stopped going. I think that if I have enough nightmares about it, it'll stop frightening me,"

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After several wardrobe changes – namely because her father thought her attire inappropriate – Imogen decided on a navy and white polka dot blouse and white skirt finished off with a pair of white round-toed ballet flats and a matching white bag. Her whole body brimmed full of excitement. She got to see her grandparents!

Imogen adored her grandparents, both of them. Quite often, it seemed, she was the only Holmes who liked them. Sherrinford was always off gallivanting doing God know what with God knows whom; Sherlock always remained closed off to protect them and Mycroft was, well, Mycroft. Imogen had never bothered to hide her fondness for anyone, particularly not her grandparents.

She had a feeling that the only reason she was taking her grandparents to the theatre was because her father had a case. That _probably _explained why one Dr Molly Hooper was currently in the living room, on the couch, looking up Jack the Ripper on a very outdated laptop. Imogen grabbed her black leather jacket and went about putting her matching leather gloves on. "You're leaving then?" Molly called out to her and the young woman smiled.

"Yeah, if Uncle Mycroft calls round and says something along the lines of 'I haven't gotten myself a goldfish' remind him that we're certain of the opposite and that if he doesn't ask Lestrade out soon, their flirtation _is _likely to end,"

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She left the theatre with her grandparents. It had been a good show, even if it _was _the 2 O'clock matinee. They walked down the streets of London, they seemed more colourful than they had for the past two years. It was night now, and yet, it all seemed light and bright. Then something or – more to the point – someone caught her eye: Anthea, stood by a black car, the kind that was standard issue for the British Government "Should we go and get some dinner?" her grandmother asked.

"Yeah, just give me a second, I think I see a friend of mine," she said before running off towards her uncle's assistant, knowing that her grandparents wouldn't mind, they'd just be pleased that she actually had friends. "Something's wrong isn't it?" she asked once she got to Anthea. She stood next to stand next to her, leaning against the car. Anthea had never been very good at hiding her Secret Service ID, it was always in her left breast pocket; if you kept eye contact with her she'd never know the ID was being lifted. Imogen knew there might be a necessity for her to do such a thing, she'd face the wrath of her uncle at a later date.

Her expression betrayed her, she looked almost worried, like whatever it was she was about to say regarded something she cared about. "John's been kidnapped. We know where he is but it'd look suspicious if…" Anthea replied, trailing off knowing that Imogen could finish the sentence on her behalf.

As she snuck the ID out of Anthea's pocket, Imogen asked the necessary question "Where?"

"St. James the Less, it's a church just…" Anthea began but Imogen had to cut her off.

"I know, thank you," and off Imogen ran, not caring that she was leaving her grandparents in the middle, they could get a taxi back to Mycroft's. St. James the Less was only two streets away. Finally, she made it there, just as her father and Mary did, on a motorcycle of all things. "What do you know?" she asked immediately, wanting answers so she knew how to help.

Her father looked worried, scared almost "He's in the bonfire," the answer was blunt, no explanation, and Imogen knew that meant he was more scared than he was willing to admit. On impulse, they ran towards the fire pushing people out of the way.

People started questioning what was going on "You two go on ahead and get him out of the fire, I'll deal with these guys," she instructed and her father and Mary ran on ahead. She removed the ID card she'd lifted from Anthea's pocket, showed it to the people assembled and announced "Everybody stand back. Secret Service business," She felt somebody a tug on her sleeve, someone with a small hand. She turned to face the person and looked down to see a boy – no older than 10, probably only 8 really – with light brown hair. "Are you lost?" she asked him kindly.

"Are you here to help Guy Fawkes get out of the fire?" he asked with the kind of doe-eyed innocence only a child could have.

"My friends are going to help him, yes," she told him sweetly as she knelt down to reach his height "Now I need you to tell me if you're lost so I can help you find your parents," she said, looking over the boy's shoulder to see her father and Mary bringing John out of the fire. A woman approached her, came right up to her "I'm sorry Ma'am, Secret Service business I'm afraid you'll have to stand back," was all she could think to say.

"But you have my son!" the woman exclaimed and Imogen allowed the boy to go back to his mother.

She then proceeded to run over to her father, John and Mary "How's he doing?" she asked.

"At best guess, some smoke inhalation, maybe a couple of burns," Mary replied and Imogen smiled filled with relief.

"You had us scared for a moment there John," she said, her voice gentle, trying not to allow her father's best friend to know the true extent of the worry that she had felt.

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_**A/N – Wow I feel guilty, like **_**really **_**guilty. I should not have left it this long. Worse still, I've had this chapter saved on here since April (I think). I am **_**so **_**sorry. So, if you're still willing to stick with me after such a long break, then I promise I won't take as long writing and updating the next chapter.**_


	6. Explosions

_And as the floods move in  
And your body starts to sink  
I was the last thing on your mind  
I know you better than you think  
'Cause it's simple darling, I gave you warning  
Now everything you own is falling from the sky in pieces  
So watch them fall with you, in slow motion  
I pray that you'll find peace of mind_

_Explosions – Ellie Goulding_

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Dealing with Mycroft Holmes at any time of day was no easy feat on a good day but when you've nicked his assistant's security ID _and _left his parents 'stranded' in the centre of London (they were never stranded, Anthea took them back to Mycroft's place), he was pretty damned unbearable. _That _was what Imogen had to deal with "You do realise that is was an emergency, right _Mykey_?" he asked, using his nickname – the one he despised with a passion – just to annoy him.

"Saving a goldfish is an emergency now is it?" he asked, glaring at her angrily. She tossed him the ID, which he didn't catch – something she'd predicted and took great pleasure in – and walked out of the room "Don't you walk out of this room young lady!" he yelled after her and she rolled her eyes, the beginnings of a smirk appearing on her face.

"Who are you, _my father_? In case you haven't noticed, I already _have _one of those," she informed him "And anyway, your boyfriend wants me to help with a case, so if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go change into something more appropriate for a crime scene,"

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Imogen had left 221B wearing black distressed jeans, a white button-down blouse, a leather bomber jacket and black suede ankle boots, leaving her father in the living room with his parents. God they had a tendency to be tedious, hearing how his father had lost his lottery ticket down the back of the sofa _yet again _was not Sherlock Holmes' idea of a good afternoon, not at all. How did Imogen handle them so often? Oh, that was right, she was _unbelievably _patient. She even seemed to _like _the ramblings of her grandmother and the somewhat idiocy of her grandfather "So did you find it eventually, your lottery ticket?" he asked, getting out of his chair, standing on the coffee table and leaping across onto the sofa, landing perfectly in between his parents. He began to look at his wall of things linked to the imminent terrorist attack. All the while, his mother went on and on about all the things she and his father had done whilst in London. He turned his head slightly as the living room door clicked open to see John stood in the doorway "John?" he said sounding unusually surprised by the appearance of his best friend and former-flatmate.

"Sorry, your busy," John said in his typically polite way.

"Uh, no, no, no, they were just leaving," Sherlock replied, helping his parents up off the sofa and ushering them out the door while they questioned it, reminding him that they were supposed to meet on Saturday, his father telling him to phone every once in a while because his mother worries, of course she did, he wouldn't phone and they knew it, waste of breath really. Imogen would phone and say that he was okay but busy "Sorry about that," he said to John, leaning against the door in relief so that his parents couldn't get back in.

"No, it's fine, clients?" John asked, turning away from the window.

"Just my parents," Sherlock informed his friend, as though it were the most normal thing in the world, which it was if you thought about it.

"Your parents?" John repeated as though he didn't actually already know them, as though it _shocked _him that Sherlock could come out of such normality, as if he hadn't met them and kept in regular contact with them after Imogen attempted to take her own life "They're. Just. So… ordinary,"

"It's a cross I have to bear," Sherlock replied and John chuckled as if nothing had changed.

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Imogen walked through the park to the edge of the cordoned off area. Interesting place to kill someone really, Hyde Park; a tourist attraction, a few days before a major gig was to be held there too. Either the killer was trying to make a statement or it was a spur of the moment thing. Either way, she knew that they _needed _to be caught.

She showed her ID to one of the coppers guarding the cordon, explaining to him that Lestrade had called her in to consult. She was handed some plastic clothing/shoe covers which she promptly put on before crawling under the white and blue police tape and walking towards Lestrade "What have we got?" she asked, unintentionally sounding like a detective on TV as she looked down at the body. Pity really, she was pretty, only the pretty people ever seemed to get killed, a curse placed upon them by everyone else's sheer knack for jealousy is what Imogen had once theorised. The victim's body was posed on her stomach, her back arched, her arms splayed out in a backwards crucifixion type way. Her dress was red, possibly a religious killing then.

"Jennifer Evans, aged 27, found by two runners this morning. Stamford put time of death at around 11 o'clock last night," Donavon ran off before Lestrade got a chance to answer. Bloody know it all, always had to be first in line to prove that she knew better, always with a disapproving look too. The woman had a distinct ability to annoy any Holmes with her need to be right all of the time, _even _if it involved calling them freaks "So, _Freak Junior_, what are you going to tell us?" she asked insultingly and Imogen rolled her eyes, not having the patience to start an argument with the woman.

Imogen knelt down beside the body, looking around her "Was Stamford able to identify cause of death?" she asked, politeness dripping from her voice, just to prove to Donovan that, yes, she _was _the better person thank you very much.

"He said that there was no reason that this woman should have died," Lestrade answered, not giving Donovan the satisfaction of giving an answer.

Imogen looked around, there was no apparent blood in the surrounding area which was indicative that the body _could _have been moved. She leaned over the body in an attempt to garner a closer look, examining the region surrounding the head and neck for _anything _that could have caused the girl to die. And… there it was, tiny, not the sort of thing you'd notice if your eyesight wasn't too great – which Stamford's had never been – a puncture wound, the size of a needle or a pin, _just _in the location of the cerebellum: pure coincidence or was the murderer a medical professional? "Puncture wound to the neck, exactly where the cerebellum is located, probably died in seconds, no pain," she explained and Lestrade nodded. Imogen continued to analyse the body, noting the bruises on Jennifer's wrists, concurrent with the theory that she had been attacked before death. Imogen took the victim's hands in her own, turning them over in her palms, noticing that in each of the palms the killer had carved a double infinity symbol – the Celtic symbol for revenge. Based off of lack of bleeding they'd been carved after death. "Any killings similar to this before?" she asked, wondering whether they had a serial killer on their hands.

"Interesting you should ask that, your friend Molly Hooper got a case similar about two weeks ago – strangulation though – with the same marks on the hands," Lestrade stated, wringing his hands. Odd, he only ever did that when worried that something bad was going to happen. "She was posed too, on her bed, tied to it in fact," he informed her. "One of the other detectives attended," he added, knowing the question Imogen was about to ask.

"Help me turn her over," she instructed and Lestrade knelt down beside the body.

"Do you _really _think this is wise? We've already had a Pathologist in to do this sort of thing," Donovan asked rather impertinently.

Imogen looked up at the dark-skinned woman and smiled slightly "I was called in as a consultant _Sally_. Your Pathologist couldn't get anything from her, now if you'll stop with this unnecessary need to prove that you're right on a permanent basis we could actually find out who _did _this for once," the eighteen-year-old stated, not even beginning to touch on Donovan's incompetency as a detective or sergeant or whatever the hell she was now. As Lestrade assisted her in rolling the body over, she noted something else; her make-up, it was heavy, too heavy for the time at which she was killed. By 11pm, her make-up would have started to wear off, particularly given the way she was dressed – out clubbing from the looks of it. Her lips were painted a pillbox red as were her nails: A scarlet woman. Her hair had been expertly curled too "You said Molly had gotten a similar case, was she painted like a doll too?" Imogen asked.

"According to the case files, it was the opposite, no make-up, white dress, very conservative," Lestrade stated.

"He has a Madonna-whore complex," Imogen concluded and Donovan and Lestrade looked at her oddly "Freud came up with this theory that a man in a loving relationship with an impotence problem would fit women into two categories: The Madonnas and the Whores. Madonnas were seen as the Virgin Mary – hence the white – the Whores were, well, that's kind of obvious – hence the reason he's dressed her in red. Total dichotomy, he probably found the first girl in a library or somewhere else deemed conservative. Jennifer here, he probably found in a nightclub," she explained "Who's on Forensics?" she asked, wanting to go through a few things.

"Anderson, be nice," Lestrade warned and she groaned, Anderson was a thorn in her side if ever there was one.

"If I wasn't nice I would've gotten a restraining order against him by now," Imogen informed the detective with a smirk as she stood up, brushing stray blades of grass off of her knees before walking over to Anderson "Phone," she said and Anderson rifled around in Jennifer's purse, only finding it after removing everything else and proceeding to hand it to her "Latest model iPhone, not what your average 27-year-old could afford, probably a work phone then," she stated and Anderson wrote it down. Oddly, she found it still had battery and _wasn't _password protected.

"What are you doing?" Anderson asked, seemingly outraged, as though what she was doing was highly illegal, which it wasn't it was more like a… grey area.

"Going through her phone to figure out who Jennifer Evans was," she answered, going through the woman's contacts finding nothing of interest, then deciding her texts would be more of interest. "Don't worry, her phone was unlocked and… well exigent circumstances, so perfectly legal," she added assuredly.

"How are you doing, you know, with your dad back from the dead and all?" Anderson asked, a question that Imogen avoided answering out of habit. If she was going to have to work with Anderson, she was going to avoid answering his questions regarding her father at _all _costs.

Instead, she deflected, searching through the phone until she found something that could explain the killer's motive "Killer may have known her in some way – possibly a friend of one of her boyfriends, there seem to be three minimum and there are some dodgy texts from a guy called Mark Conrad on here," she stated and Anderson peered over her shoulder to be able to read "I want to take you up on my desk and fuck you Jenny," she read, clearly Mark Conrad believed in being direct and to the point "You've been a bad, bad girl Jenny, it's clear you need a spanking," she read aloud.

"Sounds like your typical role play type thing to me," Anderson stated.

"And here I was thinking you and your wife only did it missionary style. Or was that a thing you and Sally did when you were a thing?" Imogen deadpanned making Anderson turn a shade of red she hadn't thought she would ever see on a man. Just then, her phone rang to the sound of Killer Queen by Queen, her ringtone for her Uncle Mycroft, deciding to answer the call, ready and prepared for another lecture on not stealing security passes, she promptly told him that "If this is another lecture, then just know that I'm at a crime scene and I really don't have time for this,"

"Imogen, I may have made a mistake," her uncle stated, in the closest thing to an apology she had ever heard or might ever hear come out of her uncle's mouth.

"_What _did you do?" she asked him in a way that implied that she would take no prisoners.

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"I can't get a hold of him," she said, dialling her father's number for the fifth time in ten minutes. She was going to _murder _her uncle for this, absolutely murder him.

"That could mean anything," Mary tried in a vain attempt at reassurance. Truthfully, Imogen could tell that Mary was just as worried as _she _was.

Imogen looked around the street for a second, trying to garner some sense as to how many of her uncle's secret service minions would see her "Bugger it, I'm going down there," she said, running down the steps into Westminster Tube Station.

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"The whole compartment is the bomb," Sherlock informed John as he lifted the seat cushions, each revealing another part of the bomb, 'Where on Earth is the control panel?' he thought to himself as he walked around, trying to figure out where _he _would put the control panel for a bomb. Moran was just as smart as him, he'd probably gotten some minions to set up the job for him. Suddenly, he put his foot on a loose floorboard – an abnormal feature for any train carriage – and decided to lift it up on the hunch that the controls for the bomb must have been there. There it was. The controls for the bomb.

"We need bomb disposal," John said, his breathing shallow and somewhat ragged.

"There may not be time for that now," Sherlock replied, thoughts of Imogen running through his mind, thoughts of how what may have been one of their last conversations involved him claiming she looked like a slag.

"So what do we do?" John asked, expecting Sherlock to have the answer like always.

But Sherlock didn't have the answer, for the first time since he was small, he didn't have an answer to a question "I have no idea," the consulting detective answered, for once admitting a lack of knowledge.

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"Ma'am, I'm afraid you can't go through there," a police officer told her, his accent northern – Yorkshire probably – as he indicated to the maintenance door behind her.

"Actually, yes I can, I'm just not supposed to," she said, slipping her hand behind her back, onto the door handle, opening the door as she said "Ta-ta," and ran down through the area under the train station.

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"Why do you think _I _know what to do?" Sherlock asked his best friend, as though his knowing something were an outrage or an improbability.

"Because you're Sherlock Holmes, you're as clever as it gets," John stated, his voice a low growl.

"Doesn't mean I know how to diffuse a giant bomb, what about _you_?"

"I wasn't _in _bomb disposal, I'm a bloody doctor,"

"And a _soldier_ as you keep reminding us all," Sherlock pointed out flippantly just as Imogen slipped through the doors.

"Oh get over it the _two _of you and figure it out! I could hear you all the way down the tracks," she said, a little louder than she had wanted to, and the two men turned to face her.

"You shouldn't be here," Sherlock said and she rolled her eyes adolescently.

"Well, I'm here now and I have no plans to leave until this is over. So, let's get to work," she instructed.

"C-can't we remove the timer or something?" John asked, seeming panicked, it was the first time Imogen had ever seen John panicked; worried, yes; sad, yes; panicked, never. Still, Imogen wracked her brain, figuring out whether the idea would work or not.

"_No, _that would set it off," her father said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She looked up at him like a teacher would a student when telling them off. He seemed to back off then, his face turning into a pout.

"See you _know _things!" John shouted in some form of misplaced hero worship. Sherlock merely sighed in annoyance. Suddenly, the lights flickered on and the carriage lurched forward. Keeping her eyes on the timer, Imogen grabbed a hold of a nearby pole for balance as the timer turned itself on.

"Oh. My God!" John exclaimed as Sherlock began pacing the carriage repeatedly saying 'Erm'. "Why didn't you call the police? Why do you _never _call the police?" John yelled angrily.

"It's no use now," Sherlock said sounding almost defeated. Imogen had never heard her father sound so defeated in her life and it scared her to no end.

That was why she slapped him (Molly had given her lessons, with skills like that, no one could say that Molly Hooper was weak) "Hey! You are _Sherlock Holmes, _you have no excuse to act defeated because I will be _damned _if end up leaving here in body bags," she told him before turning to John "And _you _John Watson are just as good as he is. Now, the two of you, stop arguing!"

"Imogen, John go now," Sherlock instructed, his voice a low, breathy snarl.

Imogen smirked, staying put while John panicked again saying "There isn't enough _time_," something Imogen couldn't help but agree with. John looked down at the timer then up at Sherlock "Mind Palace. _Use _your mind palace,"

"How would that help?"

"You've got every fact under the sun in there,"

"Yes because he can just _magically _retrieve how to diffuse a bomb from there in under two minutes," Imogen stated sarcastically.

"Yes!" John exclaimed, clearly missing the cynicism and sarcasm the oozed off of her tone.

"Maybe," her father said uncertainly.

Then, Imogen remembered something "Wait!" she called out and both men looked incredulously at her "I met a guy in a bar a couple of months ago, _he _worked bomb disposal in Iraq and he told me that every bomb had an off switch, if I can just find it…" she trailed off as she searched for it. Once she found it, she flicked it, checked the timer and breathed a sigh of relief, happy that she had managed to switch it off "There," she breathed in relief.

"Oh! You are magnificent Imogen!" her father cried joyfully and she desperately fought against the urge to smirk in response, still fuming over his faked death.

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Meanwhile, Jim Moriarty watched from Sebastian Moran's hotel room on the outskirts of London, far away from what would have been the epicentre of the explosion. The girl had grown to be _utterly _delectable in the two years he'd been away. Picking her up in that cab had been _exactly _the thrill he'd needed to remind him why he'd returned to England. Russia had been fun for a while but playing dead was so… boring, so without excitement that he needed to go back, to go back to where the thrill seemed most prevalent no matter the risk: England.

He watched on, entranced by the Holmes daughter, as she pranced about the carriage in excitement at her success like she were a prima ballerina on a stage. So beautiful, so delicate, so vulnerable, she would make a wonderful Odette. Except, darkness had infected her over the years like some unbearably torturous, tragic disease, never to leave her system. No, with the right amount of persuasion, Imogen Scarlett Holmes would make the perfect Odile for his Swan Lake game with Sherlock. Sly, cunning yet still oh so pretty a perfect little devil. The question was how, how to make her shy away from the side of the angels where she currently resided because, while Sherlock Holmes may not know it, Christmas was about to come early and the game was on.


	7. White Flag

_I know I left too much mess and destruction  
To come back again  
And I caused nothing but trouble  
I understand if you can't talk to me again  
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"  
Then I'm sure that that makes sense  
I will go down with this ship  
And I won't put my hands up and surrender  
There will be no white flag above my door_

_White Flag – Dido_

Brunch came and went again, this time with numerous announcements. First off, John and Mary were engaged, not that it surprised Imogen or Sherlock – it _had _happened right in front of their eyes after all.

Second, Molly was engaged to her boyfriend Tom as well, something that didn't sit well with either Sherlock or Imogen. Namely, because they'd both deduced the second he walked through the door that he was cheating on Molly and no one did that to _their _pathologist friend. Sherlock wanted to tell her immediately of course but Imogen said that _she _would tell Molly – it would sound better coming from a woman – and at a time when they weren't in a room filled to the brim with people (to save face for Molly).

Third, Mycroft and Lestrade were finally admitting to being a thing (Mycroft refused to label them as being a couple). An excellent thing if ever Imogen had known one. Also, it made the British Government blush so it gave everyone something to laugh about.

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Now, Imogen stood in the morgue of St. Bart's, staring intently at the body of the first victim, examining her. Her name, according to the documentation the police had found in her apartment, was Clara Hewlett, she was 19-years-old – not much older than Imogen herself was – a second-year accounting and finance student at London School of Economic and part-time nanny, also a virgin which proved – in part – Imogen's theory on the killer. "Any fingerprints?" she asked Molly, knowing that Jennifer Evans' body had been without them.

"None," Molly answered "Although there was evidence of latex," she continued. Imogen nodded. Maybe the killer was a medical professional, a doctor? Probably a GP or psychologist, a surgeon would be unlikely (they got their rushes from saving lives in the Operating Rooms of hospitals rather than taking them). "There's, uh, bruising around her wrists but that's probably from the ties that were put on them," the pathologist added and once again Imogen nodded in replied.

She leaned in, looking at the nape of Clara's neck and noted that a large chunk of hair was missing "He took a souvenir," she stated and Molly looked up, approaching the cold, metal slab on which the body lay "See, she's missing some of her hair. With Jennifer Evans', Anderson noticed that she was missing a lock of hair too," Imogen commented, yet another link between the two victims, Imogen was thankful that Anderson had actually noticed it if she was being honest with herself.

"But why would he _do _that?" Molly asked, somewhat confused.

"Because," Imogen began "He wants to remember, to remember how he turned each of his failures as a man into a success, to remember the satisfaction he felt when he saw the light leave their eyes, the sheer _power _he felt at the fact that he could put the world to rights by removing the Madonnas and the Whores from the world," she answered, finally able to profile at least a small amount of who the killer was or might be.

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"So what did you think of Tom?" Molly asked her. They had retreated into the locker room, at Imogen's behest. She had always insisted on wearing scrubs so as not to contaminate the body she was examining with fibres from her own clothing.

"He's nice," Imogen said all too quickly, unable to keep eye contact with her friend.

"You're avoiding making eye contact with me, why?" Molly asked and Imogen inhaled sharply, preparing herself for the thunderstorm of pain she was about to inflict on the woman she saw as her best friend.

"I – I just… I think he's cheating on you," the 18-year-old admitted, waiting for a reaction.

"How do you know?" Molly asked, her voice filled with a monotonous anger, the calm before the storm it would appear.

"He – he had lipstick on his scarf and I know that it's not a shade that you wear, so I put two and two together,"

"I can't have _one _moment of happiness, can I? Between you and your father… You know what? Sack this, next time you need access to a body, ask Stamford!" Molly shouted angrily, rage permeating her so that she turned a bright shade of scarlet. Meanwhile, Imogen sank to the floor, tears streaming out of her eyes and down her porcelain coloured cheeks, so upset that her friend didn't believe her, so knowingly vulnerable. Maybe her uncle _was _right, maybe caring _was _a disadvantage. Maybe she should have listened to her father when he told her that emotion was a chemical defect of the weak.

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Moriarty watched as Imogen fell apart at the apparent loss of her _dear_ friend and pathologist. Tom had done his job quite nicely and in a mere six weeks as well, Jim was impressed. The two dead girls were a nice touch too. _This_ was the perfect time for him to launch into enacting stage two of his plan. All it would take is a black town car and a few willing, if slightly ill-informed participants and Imogen Holmes would belong to Jim Moriarty.


	8. Let Me Go

_Get me out_

_Give me in_

_I gave you everything I could give_

_You try to take_

_And you try to make it_

_but take all everything you can't break_

_Let Me Go - HAIM_

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Imogen had just walked out of St Bart's when a cloth covered her mouth and nose, she tried frantically not to breathe in what was, undoubtedly, chloroform. Eventually, as she was pushed into a black town car, she unwillingly relented, cursing her inability to hold her breath for longer than ten seconds as she was forced into a deep sleep.

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She woke up, head aching, eyes blinking as she tried to get over the grogginess caused by the exposure to chloroform that she'd recently experienced. She tried to stand up but was prevented by the fact that her hands and feet were tied to the chair she hadn't quite realised she was sat on. "Okay Uncle Mycroft," she called out, believing this to be one of her uncle's cruel, overzealous punishments "I've learnt my lesson, I won't steal Anthea's ID or leave Grandma and Grandpa in the centre of London again," she said despite the fact that – at some point – she would probably find herself feeling forced, out of necessity, to do both at some point. She shivered, angry at herself for not grabbing her leather jacket when she left 221B that morning "Please Uncle, I'm _freezing_," she begged, knowing that he'd give her a mass load of crap for it at a later date.

"You _really _think this is your uncle's doing? Oh Imogen, I thought you were more intelligent than _that_," she heard the all too familiar Irish brogue and shuddered, assuming the voice to be nothing more than a hallucination. That voice had haunted her dreams and nightmares for two years, why should her waking hours be any different? Then, she saw it, that pale face with its dark, lingering eyes and narrow nose, with the smile that only appeared when something truly terrible was about to happen to you, his dark hair gelled back, every part of him so familiar. The smile changed to a smirk, so evil, so vindictive and yet, all a cover, a cover for something Imogen couldn't quite identify. He frightened her more than any horror movie or crime scene ever could and so she screamed, a high-pitched, ear-murdering scream that reminded her of nails on a chalkboard "Oh how I have missed that sound Miss Holmes, the sound of you scream, its beautiful," he said, his voice a low, lilting hum.

"Does that get you off _pervert_?" she spat angrily.

"Feisty today aren't we?"

"Always Jim, always," she said before changing her tact "What happened to you to make you so _damn _psychotic Jim? Who was it that made you like this?" she asked, trying to get a profile on the consulting criminal.

He rolled his eyes as though it were all so obvious "I was _born _this way darling," he replied and she had to scoff at the involuntary Lady Gaga reference.

"I beg to differ. _No one _is born a psychopath, they're _made. _So what triggered it Jim? Were you a lonely boy? Did your mother abandon you? Did the nuns treat you so terribly that one day you just… snapped? What was your mother? A drug addict? A drunk? A low life like the ones you so willingly do the dirty work for?"

"Don't talk about my mother that way!" he roared, his face now mere centimetres from hers.

Her face contorted into a sly grin "Have I hit a nerve? You're not extraordinary Jim, you may think you are but you're not. You're just as ordinary and boring as everyone else. And that's what hurts the most isn't it? No matter how _hard _you try, you'll never be good enough for mummy dearest will you?"

"I _was _going to be nice and let you go but now… well," he stopped, a sick little smirk on his face, one that Imogen, unfortunately, knew well and she also knew the things that tended to follow it.

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Where was she? This wasn't normal. Imogen was late home by an hour and she was _never _late, not by anything more than ten minutes. Sherlock was panicking. So, he did what he did every time he was driven insane by panic: He called John "Is Imogen with you?" he asked the moment the doctor answered his phone, not caring about the lack of politeness in his tone – not that he ever did anyway.

"No, she's not with me, wasn't she supposed to be with Molly today?" John answered, desperately trying to soothe his clearly worried friend.

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Having received phone call from his near hysterical younger brother, Mycroft Holmes set about tracking his favourite and only niece (well, that he knew of, Sherrinford always had been a bit flighty) via her phone.

Odd, she never would have gone anywhere near the British Museum, let alone Great Titchfield Street where it appeared to be stationery. It was at that moment that he received a phone call from one of his agents, the ones that Imogen wasn't supposed to know were hired to protect her "Sir, I'm afraid that your niece has been taken,"

"By whom?" Mycroft asked, feeling his blood pressure rising, wishing he had a fairy cake at his disposal.

"Dunno, I got back from lunch just as she was being put in the car, they knocked out a couple of the others assigned to 'er detail as well," the imbecile answered and Mycroft clenched his jaw beginning to grind his teeth out of anger.

"What is the _point _of you?" he yelled angrily down the phone before slamming it down on the hook and beckoning Anthea into the room "Get Greg Lestrade and my brother on the phone," he ordered.

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She looked around the room, everything was white save the ceiling. A bitch to clean up if anything went wrong, which made Imogen think that they had no intentions of killing or torturing her. The lease for the place was probably paid up front and in cash to a clueless landlord and, knowing Moriarty's men, there wouldn't even be a mark of their presence left behind after they were done.

They knew something was up, right? Her friends, her father, her uncle? Surely, they would have noticed her absence. Her uncle's spies – the ones she wasn't supposed to know about – would have notified him of her disappearance. "You were right about Tom," she heard the voice of Jim Moriarty say and she turned her head so that he was in her line of sight "It's just _too bad _she doesn't believe you," he said in reference to Molly and Imogen smirked.

"Oh, sweet, ordinary Jim, you underestimate me," she said feigning a sweetness belonging to a three-year-old "You see, the seed had been planted in Molly's head and pretty soon she'll start questioning his every move, every alibi he's provided her with, just like she did you,"

"What if I told you that he killed those two girls: Clara Hewlett and Jennifer Evans? What then?" he asked and she sat, stony-faced, not bothering to even believe a word that came out of Jim Moriarty's mouth "I'll give you a deal; I give you proof of Tom's guilt if you give me information on your father,"

"You want info on my father? Okay, get yourself a pen and piece of paper," she instructed and, once Moriarty had returned, pen and paper in hand, she began to speak "Don't ask me why but there's a word Dad has written all over the place, it's in his books, on his laptop, damned thing's everywhere. I'll spell it out for you, shall I? E-M-E-T-I-B, now read it backwards,"

"I saw that show too you know," he answered her and she began to hate the fact that she was plagued by a slight lack of creativity. It didn't matter though, she had a name, she could backtrack from there, connect up the dots, make _sure _that the evidence pointed to Tom, that was if she ever got out of this infernal place "You're quite fun to play with, you know that?"

"I bet you say that to _all _the girls. Tell me, what would your mother think of your behaviour? Would she love you or _loathe _you?" she hissed, buying her – probable – rescuer some time "What would your mother think of you kidnapping young girls for kicks?"

"You know, the more you ask about my mother, the longer you stay,"

"Oh I'm counting on it Jim. 'Cause, you see, here's the thing. In my handbag, the one you've got over there," she said indicating to her handbag which was just by Moriarty's foot "Is my phone and on my phone is a tracking device that my lovely, caring Uncle Mycroft put on, he worries you know. The moment _that _phone is switched off it sends out an alert to him, you wouldn't _believe _the amount of times he has turned up while I was in the cinema. Do you see how this works Jim? Now. I'm pretty certain that at some point in the next – shall we say – 45 minutes, someone will take down your men, kick in the door and rescue me. So, I'll cut you a deal, I won't tell anyone – not even our friend Irene Adler – that you took me _but, _in return, you have to run away and _never _return," She knew it was a long shot; she knew that quoting the Lion King was juvenile and ridiculous but still it was worth a shot wasn't it?

"Now why would I do that?" he asked, his curiosity somewhat piqued and why wouldn't it be? In a sense, he got everything in this deal and _she_, well she pretty much got nothing.

"Because you and I both know that _when _my Uncle or Lestrade or my dad or whoever it is turn up, you won't stand a chance of surviving. You'll end up shot dead or just put in some hole in the ground," she explained, knowing that it was the one and only bargaining chip she would willingly use. All of the others involved selling out her father and she had no plans to do that _regardless _of how angry she was with him.

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The plan was simple; Lestrade would go in, find Imogen, free her and apprehend whoever had kidnapped her. None of them had expected that the kidnapper wouldn't be there. So, now Imogen was stuck being interrogated by her uncle for details "He was tallish, like taller than John but shorter than Dad, Irish but he was wearing a mask so he could have had one of those voice changer things," she would lie, uncertain whether her uncle would believe it or not.

He would reply with a simple "I _know _that you're lying to me Imogen," and she would roll her eyes at her uncle's lack of belief in her words.

That was until she promptly decided to burst into tears, crying out "I'm telling you, I _never _saw his face, why won't you _believe _me?" She played up the tears, knowing that they made her uncle frightfully uncomfortable.

Her father looked down at her, then up at his brother, saying "That's enough," and she started to wonder why on _earth _she was lying for the consulting criminal known as Jim Moriarty.

"Fine, you may go _but _you are going in one of the government cars," Mycroft stated and Sherlock groaned, he hated those things and Mycroft knew it. Imogen, on the other hand, didn't have a problem with them, she just pretended to from time to time.

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Once back at 221B, Sherlock quickly checked the living room for bugs (ones he knew that his brother had placed) upon, surprisingly, finding that there were none, he immediately asked his daughter "Who are you protecting?" his voice a low growl, his hands forming the low steeple that signified that she was about to be treated as if she were a client.

"What makes you think I'm protecting someone?" she asked, deflecting the question as though it were one of Anderson's. She hated lying to her father, but it was necessary, wasn't it? If she told her father and Moriarty found out she'd be dead, surely, and – contrary to what she'd once thought – death wasn't somebody she had intentions of greeting with open arms just yet.

He rolled his eyes as though the answer were completely obvious "You fiddle with your sleeve when you're lying," he answered and she cursed the damned tell. Why couldn't it be something less obvious?

She shuffled from one foot to the other, wishing that she could avoid answering before deciding on a slightly cryptic answer "Contrary to popular belief Father, you _aren't _the only one capable of faking their death," she answered as she wandered into the kitchen, picking up a cream envelope with her name and address on it – wedding invitation, she immediately concluded. Too fanciful for John and Mary _or _Molly and Tom. She tore it open, wondering whether any of her friend from secondary school were getting married.

_Imogen Holmes,_

_Jane Catherine Richardson and James Sean Moriarty request your presence at their upcoming nuptials_

_At Great Fosters Hotel, Stroude Road, Egham_

_On Sunday 20__th__ May 2014 at three o'clock_

The invitation slid out of her hands and her jaw dropped. She could understand her mother getting married, she could understand her being invited to the wedding but _Jim Moriarty_? Of all people? Jim sodding Moriarty? She ran off to her room, still trying to process everything.


	9. Speak Now

_**A/N – EEK! It has been way too long. Umm what can I say to make this better? I could probably mention that it's a new semester and so I've been really busy but – as some of you will already know – I've been updating one of my other stories pretty regularly. I **_**have **_**actually been pretty busy this week – my bank account hasn't quite forgiven me for the large amount of photocopying I've had to pay for. This **_**is **_**about the tenth edit for this chapter though, so I **_**think **_**that it's as close to my version of perfect (which isn't actually anywhere close to perfection when you compare it to Moffat but… well you get my drift). Anyway, on with the chapter!**_

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_Don't say "Yes", run away now_  
_ I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door_  
_ Don't wait or say a single vow_  
_ You need to hear me out_  
_ And they said, "Speak now."_

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"You've gotten your streaks removed," her father said when she arrived home from the hairdressers a few days before the wedding she was bound and determined to stop.

She looked at him pointedly, her newly manicured eyebrows forming a perfect arch "_And_?" was all she said, her lips finding themselves pursed, only her front teeth – with what her orthodontist had once called 'a nice bite' – showing.

"Nothing, it looks nice," he said and she felt a little bit affronted. A compliment from her father was rare – not as rare as when they came from her uncle but rare all the same. She sat down, turning on the television and switching it over to MTV, knowing that Geordie Shore would be on, earning her a grimace from her father.

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Imogen had vowed that she would only ever shop for clothing when it was necessary and wedding crashing made a new outfit a necessity. Irene was helping her choose the dress for the Richardson-Moriarty wedding and had promised to pay for it too – making it twice the necessity it would have been. It also meant that they shopped designer labels rather than the second-hand stores Imogen tended to frequent

"Imogen, you _have _to try this one," the dominatrix said, throwing what felt like the zillionth dress over the changing room door. It was red and appeared to be skin-tight – perfect for someone with Irene's perfectly slender hourglass figure, Imogen's twig-like figure was another story.

Despite her hatred of the very idea of the dress, Imogen reluctantly tried it on, tugging it over her head and proceeding to smooth it out over her torso and legs. She couldn't help but admit that she did suit it; the in-built corsetry gave her a waist where previously there had been none, her tiny mosquito bites of breasts seemed to have grown a size due to the additional padding in that region, the lower cut neckline meant that she actually _had _cleavage. She stepped out of the dressing room to show Irene, not even bothering to conceal her smile. "What do you think?" she asked with a proud twirl.

Irene gasped and – for a brief second – Imogen thought that _maybe_ she didn't look quite as good as she'd initially believed. "You look wonderful," The Woman informed her and Imogen smiled, happy that she wouldn't have to try on another dress.

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The afternoon of the wedding, Imogen _attempted _to sneak out of 221B, believing her father to have gone on a trip his mind palace. He hadn't. "Where are you going?" he asked, making no attempt to stand up off of the couch he had lay on.

She adjusted her at, peering at her reflection in the mirror as she did so "Out," was all she said, a little too suspiciously for her liking "I should be back by five," she added as she touched up her lipstick before rushing down the steps, hoping to avoid Mrs Hudson.

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Opening her box clutch purse, Imogen presented her invitation to the usher who promptly sat her down in the front row, a flirtatious grin plastered on his face. She smiled graciously to him and he wandered off, none the wiser of what was to occur at this wedding. She wondered if Moriarty had hired him, she got the distinct impression that the usher was rather pleased with is position and she giggled at the thought of Moriarty holding auditions for groomsmen and ushers "I don't know what _you're _giggling at Missy, this wedding is an absolute _disaster_," Imogen heard an older female voice and smiled at the familiar intonations.

She rolled her eyes, a smirk washing over her face "I take it you don't like the groom then Grandmama," Her maternal grandparents were the only members of her mother's family Imogen had been allowed to see as a child, not that she minded really, she never _had _forgiven her mother for standing by while Stuart abused her.

Her grandmother smiled a small smile "He's too charming for my liking, it's as if it's all rehearsed. Your grandfather _adores _him though, what about you?"

"I'm not a… big fan," Imogen half-lied, completing it with a sigh. Moriarty entered, skipping towards the altered, his best man – who Imogen swore to be Sebastian Moran – trailing behind him. He sent a wink in Imogen's direction "_Definitely _not a big fan," she muttered under her breath.

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Imogen knew the story of how she came to be, that her parents were both drug addicts, her father had cleaned up his act when she was still tiny. She knew about how her mother had unceremoniously dumped her father without actually telling him. To the best of _Imogen's _knowledge, her mother still had yet to clean up her act. So she was shocked to see her mother looking so beautiful and radiant. The slim-fitting, floor-length dress with its off-the-shoulder neckline was paired with a classic chignon, flowing like a lace waterfall from which was a floor-length veil that acted as a train. Only a few strands of hair were left free to frame her face.

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"If there is any reason why these two should not be married, please speak now or forever hold your peace," the officiant stated and Imogen stood up without even thinking about it.

The officiant looked at her expectantly and Imogen bit her lip as she tried to figure out what to say "Hi, I'm Imogen, daughter of the bride," she stalled and a few members of the congregation gasped as though that were the biggest revelation of the day "My objection does not regard my mother per se, in fact, it is with regard to the groom. You see, I first met James Moriarty three and a half years ago when he strapped a bomb to my father's best friend's chest. Then he went off and kidnapped me a couple of months later. _Then _he went and forced my father to fake his death. You see, James Sean Moriarty is not the upstanding citizen he has led you to believe he is. He is a criminal for hire," she announced, looking at Moriarty, then at Moran. She recognised the signs, the pheromones that seemed to pass through the air as if they came from two teenagers in love "For God's sake, he's in love with the best man! I mean look at their _body language_!" he exclaimed, looking to her mother for the first time since she'd stood up to speak "I… I just think you should know that he isn't who you think he is at all. To him, you're just a pawn in his sick little chess game," she finished.

"Is this true Jim?" Jane asked, her eyes pleading with him for some kind of answer.

"I… no, she's lying, _probably _because she wants you to get together with her father," Moriarty lied and Imogen glared at her.

"Believe me or don't, I just thought you ought to know," she added before leaving the pew she had been sat in and exiting the venue.

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"Heard you might be in need of a getaway driver," she heard the familiar voice of her ex-boyfriend and groaned. She'd been walking down the main country road away from the venue in search of a cab when he showed up and rolled down the passenger window. Oh, she was going to _kill _Irene Adler one of these days.

"I can walk," she informed him, desperate to maintain a _shred _of her post-break-up dignity. Of course, the moment she said that the heavens opened and rain began to fall 'How cliché' she thought.

"You can't expect me to let you walk to the next town in _this_," Alec exclaimed, turning up the music on the stereo which – to her surprise – played Taylor Swift's Red album, damn the fact that he knew her musical weakness! She gritted her teeth, hoping the music would save her sanity during the car journey back to 221B. Reluctantly, she clambered into the passenger seat, clamping her lips shut and _hoping _that he didn't mention their break-up.

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Well, her desperate hopes and prayers _hadn't _been answered, that much Imogen knew because no more than twenty minutes into the car ride Alec had asked her why she had dumped him as if his cheating hadn't been the problem, as if he even had a _right _to ask a question like that. She could have answered him in any number of ways, she could have asked him why he cheated, she could have kept her mouth shut; she _could _have just told him to let her out of the car onto the busy streets of Surrey. None of the answers she came up with involved telling him the truth and yet _that _was the exact response she went with "Because while _you _were off cavorting with your little tramp I was dealing with my own crap!" she informed him, a little louder than one should in a confined space such as Alec's blue mini, the very car she'd helped his mother surprise him with for his birthday – she'd even paid for the stereo to be fitted.

She wasn't prepared for the answer she received, she'd expected a gallant defence of whatever her name was, she'd expected him to tell her not to be so stupid – years of neglect from her mother had taught her that that was always a possibility – she'd _even _expected him to be quieted by it all but no, he went for the prototypically Alec answer "What crap?" he asked, his voice oddly soft and suddenly she remembered why she'd once needed him – because, believe it or not, there was a point in time that she could tell him anything without judgement. There was a reason why she'd let him stick around after her father's 'fall' and it wasn't that he was a looker.

She sighed, fully prepped and ready to flag it off and shut up, not wanting him to know the truth but still, some part of her, a minute little part that always took over during times of emotional strain, took over and forced her to tell him the truth "I-I had an ectopic pregnancy," she said, blunt was always going to be her way of giving emotionally distressing news, just one of the many things she seemed to have learned from her father and uncle. "I was in this café with Mary and Molly we were catching up the three of us, we hadn't done that in a while and then I fainted. There's this period of time that's just black, like it didn't happen, and I-I just remember waking up to see Molly and my grandparents and some doctor is telling me that I had an ectopic pregnancy, that I should be fine, just a bit of discomfort. I couldn't believe it, I _wouldn't _have believed it if Molly hadn't explained what she knew," she explained and watched disbelief and sadness appear on Alec's face. She waited for the obvious question, the asking of why she wouldn't tell him but it never came. He knew, he knew her well enough to know why she wouldn't mention something like that.

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The moment she arrived back at 221B, Imogen was bombarded with questions from her father. Just the normal questions 'Where were you?' 'What happened?' It didn't surprise her really, her cheeks _were _tear-stained and she didn't exactly _look _happy, who could? Instead of answering immediately, she scanned the room for bugs: Mycroft's or otherwise. She didn't trust her uncle with anything as far as she could throw him knowing that he'd hidden the fact that her father hadn't actually died for two years and _this _virtually equated to that. Upon being asked what she was doing she merely replied "Checking for cameras," as her hand found one hidden in the bookshelf, a small black eye-like thing attached to a microphone hidden in the back of the bookcase "Sorry Uncle Mycroft," she said with a faked frown as she smashed it with her fist.

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After surveilling the flat for cameras and destroying each one she found, she noted how unusually stationery her father was. His hands weren't steepled beneath his chin so she knew that it wasn't a mind palace thing and then she saw her mother, still wearing her white wedding dress. Imogen analysed her father's face, aiming to gauge his reaction, his eyes were narrowed in a glare – that was never a good sign – his mouth a thin line, a sign of disgust. What was her mother even _doing _at 221B? "Our _daughter _just stopped my wedding," she announced angrily and Sherlock looked to Imogen who seemed to seethe at the idea of being referred to as Jane Richardson's daughter.


	10. Confident

_It's time for me to take it_  
_ I'm the boss right now_  
_ Not gonna fake it_  
_ Not when you go down_  
_ 'Cause this is my game_  
_ And you better come to play_  
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_What was her mother _doing _at 221B? "Our _daughter _just stopped my wedding," she announced and Sherlock looked to Imogen who seemed to seethe at the idea of being referred to as Jane Richardson's daughter._

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Imogen gritted her teeth, trying almost desperately to avoid the angry outburst she just _knew _was coming. She looked to her father, noting his stance; he was observing… something. What it was, she couldn't quite tell, her deduction skills never were any good when applied to her father.

She turned her attention back to her mother who appeared to be analysing her as well. Imogen observed how blood shot Jane's eyes were; not from crying, no, these were the eyes of an addict, an addict clearly in need of a fix "When was the last time you got a hit Jane?" she asked bitterly and bluntly.

"I-I don't know w-what you mean darling," Jane stuttered as she glanced from side to side, a clear attempt at a lie but Imogen was not so naïve as to believe it.

"Oh do fuck off, I know a liar when I see one and guess what? You show all the symptoms. What is it this time? Still crack? Or did you move onto something different? Amphetamines maybe?" Imogen wondered aloud, a smirk crossing her distinctive features "Planning a wedding _is _stressful after all, or so I've heard. All of that napkin folding and charting of seats and colour scheming. Not to _mention _the dress fittings. I wouldn't _blame _you for needing an escape. Must be ten times worse when you're marrying Britain's _favourite _consulting criminal," she sneered, her voice low. _That _caught her father's attention, his eyes widening with something akin to fear.

"You didn't think you were the _only _one who could fake their death, did you Sherlock?" Jane cackled, sounding a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West, and Sherlock bit his lip in response "Oh, I'd forgotten how fun it could be to play with you,"

At that, Imogen gasped, stepping back a few feet until she was stood right against her father's bookshelf as the memory of the last time Moriarty held her captive returned to her mind "You _knew_!" she exclaimed almost breathlessly "I thought you were the innocent one, that he was preying on you, that you needed protecting, but you're just as bad as he is!" she declared angrily before storming off to her room and slamming the door. Then, she had an idea; opening the door, she yelled "And _just _so you know, he _is _gay, your fiancé, have a look at his _shoes _next time you see him, you know in case you thought he was _actually _in love with you,"

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Jane sat in the chair across from him – the one he and John usually reserved for clients, not that she seemed to _care _about the way things worked in 221B – she'd lost some of her old spunk comparative to when they were younger, he supposed he had too. They were both silent; it wasn't awkward, it never had been between the two of them. He relished in the silence, _normally_. Now, he just wanted to know why the woman who hadn't bothered with him in _18 years _– even when their daughter had run away – was in his flat "You obviously want something, what is it?" he asked, making it clear that he was impatient in his search for answers.

"No small talk then?" she responded laughingly, eyebrows raised in perfectly manicured arcs, as though _daring _him to enter into some sort of polite conversation. He mimicked her facials, adding a scowl to the mix "Fine," she sighed relenting away from her original mission "I want a relationship with our daughter," He didn't trust her answer, he'd learned long ago that Jane Richardson was a pathological liar, a quality he'd once found endearing and attractive. Now, it repulsed him.

"I think she's made it perfectly clear that that is not something she wants and I can't force her to have a relationship with you, she _is _eighteen after all," he informed her bluntly.

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Imogen was to be a bridesmaid. That meant she had to deal with trying on a bunch of dresses she didn't like (because, let's face it, Imogen was more of a jumpsuit type) in colours she wasn't a big fan of. It was for John and Mary, she kept reminding herself. She liked the chief bridesmaid though, Janine, even if she _was _a little man hungry.

Still, Imogen felt the need to leave the bridal shop to gain some form of air that didn't have a constant scent of vanilla to it which was what led to an _unfortunate _discussion "Is this your first time shopping here?" she heard the Irish accent and crossed her arms over her chest, trying to maintain a semblance of control over her actions _and _the scenario she'd found herself in the midst of.

"I'm eighteen and single, what do you think?" she responded dryly "It doesn't matter, I thought we had an agreement that you'd leave me alone,"

"It's kind of difficult when you show up at my wedding," he spat and she rolled her eyes, tempted to laugh at him "You find the evidence linking Tom to those murders yet?" he asked, changing the subject away from something he saw as potentially uncomfortable – evasion, a tactic found in those with limited resources as her uncle had once told her.

She scoffed "You know I can't talk about open cases outside of Scotland Yard, _particularly _with criminals,"

"So, you have two bodies, together representative of a Madonna-Whore complex and traces of latex on the first of them, what did Anderson find in the area around Jennifer Evans' body?" Then it hit her, Lestrade had mentioned that they'd found semen in the area surrounding the body, they'd run the DNA sample from it through the criminal registry but nothing came up meaning that without a sample to compare it to, they didn't have anything close to a match.

Instead of taking the advice as the golden gift it was, she questioned it "Why do you want to help me?"

"Your mother misses you," he responded, evading the question once again.

"Tell her I don't care, she relinquished the title of mother a long time ago," was all the response she needed to make Jim Moriarty walk away.

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She came home to find David, a man whom John and Mary had appointed usher, sat across from her father. She smirked, setting her handbag down on the floor at the edge of the room, glad that she could be there to witness her father give Mary's ex a talking to "You can't assume from that I've still got some kind of… interest in Mary," she heard the blonde man say and had to hold back laughter as her father mentioned the numerous occasions David had offered to console Mary – each at a time when Mary hadn't _actually _needed consoling.

"Let's not forget that time you tried to chat me up in a pub _just _because Mary was watching," Imogen decided to add into the mix, just for the sake of it.

"I-Imogen, I-I didn't… do you know him?" David stuttered and Imogen laughed perhaps more raucously than she should have.

"Well, I ought to, he _is _my father after all,"

"Yes, I think we'll downgrade you to casual acquaintance," her father said before spouting off what that meant for poor David – _if _you could call him poor that is. Imogen thought him kind of an arse.

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Getting Tom's DNA – as Moriarty had essentially suggested – was going to be difficult, more difficult than Imogen had hoped for anyway. Best case scenario, she'd have to fake bumping into him when visiting Molly and pluck a hair from his head. So, that was what she had attempted, except he'd figured her out _far _too quickly for her liking and she had to formulate a new plan. To top it all off, she'd arrived home to find her father showing a small child – the ring-bearer for the wedding – pictures of a decaying head. She slammed the laptop shut and proceeded to lecture her father "You _cannot _go showing _children _things like that!" she yelled angrily.

"Why not? It never did you any harm?" he commented.

"Didn't it? I have scars on my wrists and conversations with a consulting criminal!" she exclaimed a little louder than she'd wanted. Her father looked shocked and she waited for the inevitable question but it never came "The case I've spent _months _working on, Moriarty told me that Tom – Molly's Tom – did it, the problem is that there isn't a _scrap _of evidence to prove it except some semen and because Tom's never been arrested or anything he isn't in any kind of system Scotland Yard has access to. So I tried to steal a hair off his head but he figured me out," It was just then that the ring-bearer's mother showed up so they couldn't say anything more on the subject.

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She needed to get out of the flat, which was exactly how she ended up in Lestrade's office _begging _him to take Tom into custody "We need to interrogate Tom Mitchell," she stated, leaning over Lestrade's desk. The look on Lestrade's face made her feel the need to explain herself "I have a source who says that Tom's the killer, the problem _is _that said source could never testify in court so we'd need a confession from Tom to be able to get justice for those two women,"

"Molly's Tom?" Lestrade questioned, dumbfounded.

"Yes," she sighed but found herself feeling defeated based off of the shake of his head "At _least _get him to give us a DNA sample so we could test it against the semen," she begged. Still, Lestrade shook his head.

Then, he changed the subject to one she hadn't expected "Has your uncle spoken to you about whether he's going to John and Mary's wedding?" he asked and, for the first time _ever, _Imogen saw something akin to vulnerability in Lestrade's face, it worried her knowing that he _could _be vulnerable- she hadn't even seen him vulnerable when her father had 'died'.

"You know what he's like, doesn't really _go_ to that sort of thing. Dad and I have been working on getting him to go but… look, I love my uncle but I'm pretty sure that if I were to get married _tomorrow _he wouldn't turn up," she answered before realising her mistake "I mean I'm sure he'd show up if you _asked _him. Have you? Asked him I mean," Lestrade shook his head and she rolled her eyes "_You _are and idiot. _Ask _him!" she told him as though it were obvious… which it was.

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A few nights later, Imogen heard sirens and Lestrade yelling at her father in the living room of 221B _"What _is going on?" she demanded before looking to Lestrade "Weren't you supposed to be arresting the Waters Gang tonight?"

"I was but _he _texted saying he needed help, so I came," Lestrade answered somewhat angrily, she couldn't blame either, the arrests of the Waters Gang would have _made _his career more so than any of the other cases he'd worked.

"So you brought in the cavalry? You could've just called Uncle Mycroft, he may not _like _field work but the aftermath _does _give him an excuse to eat cake," She watched as Lestrade's eyes widened at the mention of cake, _clearly _her uncle's tastes were starting to rub off on him "Don't worry, I'll make you some _if _you promise not to arrest Dad for wasting police time," she bargained and Lestrade shrugged. She turned to her father "And _you_, your speech doesn't _need _funny anecdotes or to follow some shitty manual you picked up in WH Smith. Just speak from the heart… okay, ask Molly if she can give you one first,"


End file.
